


Dimir Days

by mechadogmarron



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Canonical Queer Characters, Fantasy Legalese, Gen, Legal Investigations, M/M, The Dimir Get Up To Everything, written before the WAR novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechadogmarron/pseuds/mechadogmarron
Summary: Lavinia's on one of the hardest cases of her career in the back-end of the Tenth when she runs into a familiar face.Unfortunately, said familiar face is Ral Zarek, who has never been useful, subtle, or beneficial in any regard in his entire life, no matter how helpful he occasionally is wrangling the Living Guildpact. Fortunately, he has a friend who's a little more knowledgeable on these particular sorts of matters.





	Dimir Days

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all I'm super fucking hype for Tomik
> 
> also I had to rush to finish this before the novel came out, so apologies for any minor errors

Sturdy brown walls. A good roof, well-built. Thick wooden doors, a brass knocker in the shape of a particularly suspicious species of dragonfly. If she hadn't known better, Lavinia would have found the building… typical. Average, if a bit nice for a predominantly Guildless neighborhood.

Unfortunately, there were two things Lavinia did know about the building, and neither were particularly good news.

First off, it was a Dimir safehouse. They'd discovered as much by accident; another Azorius agent had been visiting a friend and noticed a known agent in the area, so she'd investigated further. Now, the Dimir has their guildpact duties, just like the Azorius, and it was a far worse crime to go against that than the sort of things that happened in a typical safehouse, but that came to problem number two.

In the basement of said safehouse, a griffin rider had detected a very powerful, and very dangerous, artifact. The kind of danger that had her away from her usual twofold duty of managing junior staff and wrangling the Guildpact and left her on stakeout duty herself. At least she wasn't well-known out here. No one was going to recognize her, let alone—

“Didn't expect to see you around here.” She jumped straight out her skin, drawing her weapon, turning to face whoever had snuck up on her. “Relax, relax, it's just me.”

Ral Zarek. She groaned. He was a good guy, or at least useful, with a weird ability to find the Guildpact when he disappeared to Dimir-knew-where and pull him back. She didn't mind having him around most of the time, was even willing to overlook his (surprisingly uncommon) less than legal experiments out of a possibly misguided desire to ensure that the Guildpact wasn't entirely friendless and alone. That did _not_ mean she needed to put up with him at a time like this. “I could say the same to you. Pretty far from Izzet territory.”

“There are a couple labs out here. Sometimes you've got to experiment without half of the Izmagus snooping.” He shrugged. “You looking at buying a house? Bit of a commute to the Office of the Guildpact, but at least you wouldn't be going through anything Rakdos. Little more likely to stay alive that way.”

“I’m not particularly afraid of a few clowns. And, er, yes, I'm thinking about buying. The architecture on this is lovely, and it looks like a good, sturdy foundation. I think I'd prefer something a little less out of the way, but…”

“What, do the Azorius seriously not pay you enough to live in an Az neighborhood? I know the legalese isn't great for prices, but you're pretty high up, aren't you?”

“Shh!” She looked around, hoped desperately that none of them had heard. “Look, what do I need to do to get you to be quiet and leave?”

“I've never been quiet my whole life. I just want to know whether my lab’s about to be a casualty in some kind of raid.”

“Well, take me to your lab, and I'll tell you how fucked you are, okay?”

“Geeze, if you wanted to see my experiments so bad, you only had to ask.”

It really was a short walk to what… appeared to be a pretty typical Izzet lab. The stench of magic sat heavy in the air, some of it hardly Izzet, but she'd never been the best at distinguishing spell types. No Weirds ran around, but he settled her at a chair in front of some kind of baffling device, the purpose of which no one on all of Ravnica could've probably intuited.

“Alright, so how fucked am I? I like the neighborhood, and I'd rather not pack up. Everyone thinks I'd rather be near Nivix, but man, you'll have half the Izmagus breathing down your neck every five minutes there.”

“I shouldn't be speaking about an ongoing investigation, but I'll tell you what I can if you can tell me everything you know about that house. You're, what, four blocks away? You've probably seen something.”

“I don't exactly wander the streets much, but I know they get a fair bit of mail there, and I've seen people come and go. Guildless haven't been going missing any more than usual.”

She nodded. “That's good, at least; they're probably not experimenting. They've got a destructive artifact, third class cached in there. Technically we’re in the bottom of the Tenth District, so it's gone to me to investigate.”

He paled. “Third class? Are you sure?”

“I'm surprised you even know what that means, but yes, all intel suggests it. We don't have a man on the inside, but we got a tip, and a couple of cloaked magic-sensing griffins picked up considerable signals.”

“I'm not entirely ignorant. 90% of my experiments are entirely above board, you know. You've never had any complaints about this place, have you?”

“No, I suppose we haven't. In any case, if that artifact is activated where it is, that’d be the end of everything in the five-block radius, including you. The Azorius have the situation under control, and if they haven't used it now they're not likely to use it, so you're not in any particular danger, but…”

“It might be a good time to crash at Zizix’s place.” He sighed. “Look, I'm not going to get into the details, but I have — ties, to this neighborhood. I'd really rather nothing bad happen to it. And, well, I might be able to help.”

“Ral, with all due respect, I think any kind of Izzet-based help is only going to make the situation worse.”

“No, no — look, come back tonight, after your shift, and I'll talk to my guy.”

“We’ll see,” she replied, because she hated to admit that the Azorius didn't really have a plan for this one.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the stakeout offered nothing of use at all. Worse, she was starting to think they might be on to her. Ral _had_ made quite a scene.

At least his lab was easy to find. Although — had that gargoyle been there before? A lot of landlords were Orzhov, she supposed. She’d need to inform him of his rights, if that was the case. Mind wandering, she entered to find him with —

Not a Weird. Not some kind of bizarre house-exploding device. Not a specialized magnet meant to attract dangerous artifacts. Ral had brought a fucking _advokist_.

“Lavinia, this is Tomik Vrona. He’s an advokist specializing in the protection of physical locations and treasures. He might be able to help.”

What. The idea of inviting some Orzhov into a case was already baffling; the idea that _Ral_ , painfully Izzet as he was, was apparently good enough friends with one to drag him into this was even more so. Didn't he have something better to do? Some definitely-less-than-legal extortion? She—

“It's nice to meet you, Lavinia. My specialty is land usage rights in general, and I guarantee you that if we can put our heads together, we can find some way in which the property isn't zoned correctly. At that point, a Hieromancer can put the place on lockdown — Ral tells me he knows a guy — and you can retrieve your item.”

“A sound plan,” she responded, because that, at least, made sense. “Forgive me for being so gauche, but what’ll it cost?”

“For a friend of Ral’s, I'd be delighted to work for free. I'd rather not this place be blown up by some hapless spy, anyways; it's a lovely neighborhood.”

She balked. An Orzhov, working for free? Might as well have been an Izzet following proper safety procedures.

“See? He's cool. Hasn't stolen my soul yet.”

“Do you live in the area, then? It’s not particularly close to a cathedral.”

“Ah, well, I've gathered from your expression that you're not terribly fond of the Orzhov, yes? Imagine living with them all of the time. Best to get some space and let Niro take me where I need to go.”

“The gargoyle,” Ral supplied.

“Ah, I see.” Then it — well, it still didn't make sense, really, but at least he had some skin in the game. “I'll contact one of the Azorius lawmages, and we can draft up a contract.”

He shook his head. “I’d rather do this off the books, if possible. Show weakness with a free deal once and you'll have the other Orzhov breathing down your neck til the day you die, and then breathing down your spectre’s neck. My parents raised me right, but not every advokist is so lucky, you know.”

Off-the-books. With an Orzhov. That was crazy on its own, enough to make a lesser arrester’s head spin. No, what was really crazy was how seriously she was considering it.

“It'll be fine. Tomik and I go way back.”

It felt like a bad idea. A terrible idea, even, the kind of thing that could haunt her long past her death. But the artifact had to be removed, or the casualties could be enormous. She needed to—

She shook her head. “So, just to summarize, you’ll help me figure out what land rights and usage law they're breaking so we can lock them down, and in return, we’ll do what we can to keep the streets safe.”

“Exactly. Just an advokist and an arrester doing their usual duties in a way that happens to be mutually beneficial. A happy accident, so to speak.”

“The faster this is over with, the faster you can get back to mother henning the Guildpact,” Ral added. “Probably a bit more important to Ravnica’s safety than a rusty old weapon of moderate destruction, really.”

“Alright.”

If she hadn't been trained, she would've slapped a hand over her mouth. As it was, she tensed, waiting for it: the constriction of Orzhov spellwork, not unlike Azorius’s, the choking feeling of a dead man’s grasp. But it never came.

“I trust you to do your job,” Tomik said, expression even, “and you, presumably, trust me to do mine. I think we can manage on that, as individuals mutually interested in the future of the southern point of the Tenth.”

“Hm.” She still didn't trust him. “It's rare to meet anyone from the Orzhov with a proper respect for the rule of law.”

“I absolutely agree. So many of my guild only want money, and have no concern for the beauty of Ravnika’s order. Without the law, where would we be? Worse off than the Gruul — at least they keep their own sort of rules.” Tomik smiled.

Well, if nothing else, he could schmooze. Probably got him a leg up dealing with those geriatric ghosts. Isperia’d never hear that kind of bloat. “Quite so.”

“In any case. I assume you've already considered this angle, but is there any hope with regards to a suit under the Comprehensive Legislation Regarding Ownership of Magical Artifacts, subsection 4bf?”

“Unfortunately, the house is technically owned by an alias belonging to a very high-ranking Dimir official. They could argue a 4bf1-4 exemption, and it almost certainly wouldn't work, but it would give them enough time to secure the artifact somewhere else, and enough motive to use it.”

“Ah, yes, that's been known to happen. Good move on checking the home registration. If you have an inside man, you could seize it under 4bb9 and get around some of that risk, but—”

“No inside men, I'm afraid. Whoever tipped us off probably won't want to rock the boat — working theory is that it's someone who’s looking for a promotion and needs their boss out of the way, but that's good enough for us. We considered trying to force entry through 4bb3, but it's too risky.”

“Hm. CLROMA might be out in general, then. Unfortunate, but not surprising; as you said, it's better to go after the house itself. Zoning law is one of my specialties, anyways. What's the property?”

“103.24 Guild-Related Semi-medium-small Residential/Business, Blue Usage Preferred, Izzet Laboratory Usage Excluded.”

“Is it .24a or .24b? If it's b, and the artifact has a Red mana signature, as with, to be frank, most C3s, you could act under the Enforcement of Guild Exclusions Act — the mana echoes would be strong enough to reasonably suspect an Izzet lab.”

“.24a, but good thought. As is, though, the written notice would tip them off. We might be able to bury it at New Prague, but let's leave that an option of last resort — they're being extraordinarily careful.”

“Hmm… Ral, could you bring us some coffee? I'll spot you the Tuesday Special at the cart on Sixth.”

“Your legalese is insufferable anyways,” he replied, but he looked like he'd seen the sun. Did he — but no, it wasn't her place to pry. There were far more important matters to attend to anyways.

The Act Regarding Possession of Weapons Related to the Postpact Conflict was a bust; the Operation of Mailrooms Handling Izzet Mail in Residential Areas Act seemed promising, but despite their courier cover, the Dimir didn't actually seem to be processing any mail in the safehouse. The Handling of Red Mana by Blue Guilds Act had been found to be against the Guildpact not three weeks ago — damnit — and the Weapons Intended for Usage Against the Guildpact Act just didn’t fit, not since Jace lived nowhere near here. Technically the same district wasn’t good enough; the Tenth was _huge_ , miles and miles of solid gridlock. The Statue Regarding Covert Operations in Guild Areas was meaningless in a Guildless area, and—

“Wait a moment. Regarding the SRCOIGA—” he pronounced it _sire-co-eye-ga_ , like an Azorius would, none of that _sir-co-ee-ga_ shit, “—technically, Ral is a top Izzet mage operating an Inventitorium. Izzet has a legitimate claim on this neighborhood.”

“This place is registered?”

“This place is registered as 109.24 Private Property of a Guildmember, Small, Residential/Business, Blue or White Usage Preferred, Undead Presence Disallowed. Two blocks over, however, Ral is also in possession of a 48.32 Guild-Related Semi-medium Laboratory, Blue and Red Usage Preferred, Black Usage Excluded, and in addition owns a 49.32 Guild-Related Semi-medium Inventatorium, Blue and Red Usage Preferred, Black Usage Excluded.”

“So this is Ral’s… home?” Gadgets and whatzits everywhere, electricity crackling from strange devices, the tinny hum of full electricity, hardly a — well, it was Ral.

“It is indeed. In any case, by the definition of a Guild-affiliated neighborhood as laid out in Guild Behaviors 3fe.41, the presence of a Guildmage meeting the appropriate criteria, e.g. a Councilmember of Nivix, 3fe.41.5, is sufficient to consider an uncontested neighborhood guild-related, so long as at least sixty percent of his owned properties are present and so long as there is no other heavy guild presence, as defined in 3fe. Unfortunately for the Dimir, the nature of their clandestine operations makes it difficult for them to officially hold heavy guild presence, and most of the Orzhov in the neighborhood were recently forced to leave due to a _tragic_ rezoning of several Green, Black, and White Usage Preferred blocks as Green and White Usage Preferred, Undead Excluded.”

“Hm. But 3fe.41.3 specifies—”

“Ah, but you must consider the Dimir Guild Bylaws, Principle 7. Per the Original Guildpact, section three—”

“I see, but—”

By the time they’d finally formed a plan of attack, the sun had long set, and reinforcements — brought by Tomik’s loyal gargoyle, who was far less conspicuous than a griffin — had arrived, a half dozen of their finest, most subtle arresters and a beefcake Boros hieromancer Jace had befriended.

But there was no time to think about him. Positions, positions. She found herself in front of a piroshki stand, discussing the harvest with a vendor, how it was affecting the price of cabbage. The seconds ticked by, the minutes. Was everything alright? They couldn’t afford a mistake, not in this case, not with this kind of crime. He groaned. Was there even—

A griffin-horn gave its loud cry, and her feet were moving before her mind could react, honed arrester instincts carrying her to the site around a corner and barely out of sight. What few Guildless were out on the street gave her a wide berth, faces twisted with all those terrible feelings that came with being unprotected against alliances, just _asking_ for a fate worse than most.

Those were thoughts for later, though. For now, there was nothing but the Dimir safehouse.

She was pleased to see, as she rounded the corner, great white and blue bubbles around it, these ones tuned to allow the Dimir out, but only if they left unarmed. Property crimes rarely required an immediate detainment, after all. They’d simply need to file forms 104.3c and 109.2f in triplicate on a Tuesday between the hours of 3:00 and 3:30 and then wait eight to ten weeks for a court date, and they’d be able to move any forbidden items to another Dimir safehouse in a Dimir-controlled or uncontrolled neighborhood, perhaps Prietown. Or, alternatively, file 302.4 and 209.8 and then acquire the signature of provising Guildmage Ral Zarek, and then wait six to fifteen days for the paperwork to be processed. There was really nothing to it.

Unfortunately, were the Azorius to find any particularly _terrible_ contraband, contraband forbidden by CLROMA, well, that was what it was. They’d be filing paperwork for months for an opportunity to have a pre-case oversight by one of the fifty-three preceeding court judges, and then they’d need to wait fifteen to twenty years to see Isperia herself. It was simply the way of things, and if the Dimir didn’t like the Azorius Guildpact duties, well, that was their problem.

“Any Dimir inside?” she asked the arrester watching the front door.

“We’re not certain. None of our spells suggest any such thing, but, well…”

“…the Dimir have their ways,” she finished. Slippery as an eel in the mudpits. “How many of our own?”

“Three maintaining the shield and three on the outside. None on the inside. The hieromancer is assisting in the former matter until a full unit can be dispatched and proper paperwork can be filed, per the Grand Matters of the Azorius, 409.al.39.”

“Understood. I’ll arrange for a thanks to be sent to the Boros. It’s rare they do good work, but they’ve got a few with a usable head on their shoulders. I’ll be heading in.”

Free of nerves, she stepped through the door. High ceilings, open floorplan, bright lighting, all _painfully_ un-Dimir, but what was more Dimir than being un-Dimir? The kitchen looked unused, the couches pristine. The kind of place she wouldn’t mind settling down in — clean, proper. The floorboards were thick, and there was no clear path to the basement.

Well, that was just the Dimir way.

Not under the couches, no. Not beneath the table. Not accessed by pulling any given book out of the shelf, and there was no triggering mechanism behind them which might make for a specific combination being required. Nothing in any of the pantries; the oven was just an oven.

The flow of mana, the lifeblood of Ravnica. From here, she could hear the heavy red presence, could feel it, but whatever mechanism there was for entry, it wasn’t magical, or it was too simple, too subtle for her dull senses to catch. A loose floorboard? She tamped on them, one after another, but none of them seemed to have a thing.

“Quite the puzzle, hm?”

“Tomik? I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to ask you to leave. This is an active crime scene.”

“It’s more of a passive crime, evidence of class-E or better contraband on an opposition guild, isn’t it?” He smiled. “In any case, this is my specialty, and I told you the terms of our deal already: I help you help our neighborhood.”

“Your specialty is stealing artifacts?”

“Oh, no, I would never steal.” Mock offense flittered over his face, a contrast to his bright grin. “It’s just not the Orzhov way. There are plenty of perfectly quasilegal ways to get what you’d like after all. But as for me, personally, I’m largely a security mage, keeping artifacts safe. That I may occasionally dabble in other side of that law is simply a part of the game we all play in my guild. There’s good money in retrieving items of value that have been… misobtained, and it’s honorable work.”

She nodded. It wasn’t as if it was dangerous; the shield ought to protect them from ill intent. Might as well avoid a noisy fight. “I’m having a difficult time finding a way downstairs, unfortunately.”

“Knowing the Dimir, it’s likely more trouble than it’s worth to find one. Per SRCOIGA 12.09, any Azorius arrester, Boros enforcer, or assisting member of another guild considered adjacent to the relevant tasks may engage in the removal of floorboards for the purpose of locating a believed contrabrand stash, so long as reimbursable for damage is made available pursuant to the filing of the correct forms.”

“I suppose. Stand back.”

They crackled as she pulled them away, and she kept a counterspell at the ready as she pulled up the nails with a simple charm, tore them away to reveal a deep, dark pit. Now _that_ was Dimir. A quick lighting spell and she was down.

Even with her magic, the place seemed oppressive, though it was empty. There was bin after bin, box after box, all aglow with heavy magic. Tomik hit the ground behind her, brushing off his fine Orzhov clothes. Did she need backup? But no, they needed to keep the outer perimeter clear. She could manage this. She’d seen worse in her line of work.

She let herself visualize the mana flows again, stink of red magic heavier even than the familiar, comforting blue, the ever-oppressive black. She let it guide her, let it find her even as she found it. There it was, in an unassuming cheap birch box. The lid was cheap in her hands, splintery, but when she unveiled it, she revealed—

“Oh, that’s not good,” Tomik said.

Understatement of the century. She’d seen much, much smaller versions of these with Ral, but a bomb this size could level a city block. Not exactly what she’d been expecting, but certainly an artifact for _some_ definition of artifact, and certainly Class C. Worse yet, it was ticking, armed.

“Are you trained is disarmament, by any chance.”

“No, though it’s funny you should ask. We should probably get out of here.”

She looked around the room, only to find… no ladder. No rope up. No clear way, and she couldn’t jump high enough to get them out from here, not with the depth of the basement. “How do you propose we do that?”

“Hm. Well, I suppose I might be joining my parents a little sooner rather than later. They’ll be furious I didn’t grow into my body a bit more before ditching it. Oh, just a moment.” He whistled loudly. “We’ll see if Kiba can hear me down here, but I doubt it. How long do we have.”

“Not — not long, I don’t think.”

Think, think. Disarming was out. She couldn’t contain the blast of this in a sphere strong enough not to kill her, but if she shielded it, that plus the shield on the way out would at least keep the rest of the area safe. That was… something. Better than leaving and looking for help; she hadn’t brought a bomb specialist anyways. Perhaps…

“Tomik, I’m going to try to lift you out.”

“You will do no such thing. I said I would see this through and I will. Besides, this place is a good fifteen feet deep. Even together, we won’t be enough.”

“Damnit.” Why hadn’t she learned flight magic? It hadn’t seemed relevant at the time — it was quite advanced, and griffins did the job just fine — but now she found herself regretting it. If only she had, if only she’d put the hours in, if only!

The bomb started to glow, started to detonate. So this was it — so this was the end. She took a deepth breath—

—and then a massive stone gargoyle cam smashing through the floor, there was a flash of brilliant red-blue mana, and everything went dark.

The world was spinning, her head was pounding. What had happened? She must’ve been alive, but how? Groaning, she opened her eyes and, ooops, whoops, she definitely wasn’t supposed to see that, certainly shouldn’t be bearing witness to Tomik and Ral’s surprisingly passionate embrace, to the way the Izzet man brought him close with passion as he presumably celebrated the fact that his lover was still alive.

Tomik, to his credit, avoided jumping out of his skin when he noticed her looking. Ral was not _quite_ so composed.

“So, you two, huh?”

“As much as I’ve appreciated our work together, I’d rather this not get out, and—”

“He’s asking if you can keep a secret.” Ral rolled his eyes. “Which — of course you can, you’ve kept mine just fine.”

“About your — travels?”

“He knows, don’t worry. But yes, about my _travels_. So consider this like my _travels_ — my business alone — and I think all three of us can get along just fine.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of anything else. Ral, did you disarm the bomb? Is that what that cacophany was?”

“Oh, you know. I’ve made enough explosions to know how to stop them. You can thank me later.”

“Oh, don’t mind him. He just gets weird with near-death situations, you know, hasn’t accepted that that’s the way of thing. I, myself, am not terribly concerned with the matter; most my family and many of my friends are ghosts, and it’s lovely for them, as I’m sure it will be for me. Speaking of which, Lavinia, we’ve got a few friends coming over for a roast on Saturday — it’s an Orzhov holiday. Would you like to join us?”

“You know what?” she said, still a little addled from a near-death city block save, still a little out of it from Ral’s apparent daring rescue. “I would love to.”


End file.
